Some directing news for y’all courtesy of Deadline, who have word on three intriguing but embryonic projects. We reported way back in October that various people were trying to get different projects based on the life of escapologist Harry Houdini off the ground, but doing so is proving harder than getting out of a tank of water while shackled (you know, for someone who isn’t Houdini). Disappointingly, Joe Wright is no longer being linked to Summit Entertainment‘s project, which features a script based on the book “The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First Superhero.” Word now is focusing on Dean Parisot, chiefly a comedy and TV director but also maker of the upcoming “Red 2”, the kind of kinetic, lighthearted action that the Houdini flick is likely to aim for (taking its cure from the huge success of Guy Ritchie‘s “Sherlock Holmes”). Could be interesting?

Deadline also brings newsof a new thriller project to be directed by one Rupert Sanders, mainly famous for directing “Snow White and the Huntsman” and getting involved with its star, Kristen Stewart, causing Tumblr to shatter into a billion distraught pieces. Anyhow, now that we’re all ready to move on, Sanders has announced that he’ll be directing an adaptation of the forthcoming Frederick Forsyth thriller “The Kill List” (not to be confused with recent amazing British horror flick “Kill List”). Sanders says it’s a (somewhat familiar, after last year’s Oscars?) tale of the psychological interplay of “‘the hunter’ – a US Special Forces Tracker and ‘the hunted’ an extreme fundamentalist terrorist.” Mirror, mirror, on the wall, where’s the baddest terrorist of them all?

Finally, there’s a new project for Baltasar Kormakur, the Icelandic director of “Contraband” and the forthcoming Denzel Washington/Mark Wahlberg action comedy “2 Guns,” as well as a number of excellent flicks in his native land. His new as-yet-untitled film will draw on the true story of criminals released by corrupt politicians in return for carrying out contract killers, a scandal that also inspired the recent Philippine film “On The Job,” though Kormakur’s pic won’t be a direct remake. Kormakur’s American flicks have been pretty conventional, but in Icelandic pieces like “Jar City” he’s shown a sense for corruption and grime that would serve this concept well.

Zhao said with her Bass Reeves biopic, she’ll direct a more traditional cast like she did with her first-timers: “You can work with an actor in a certain way, you can create an environment like Terrence Malick has always done.”